


Little Burr

by ghostburr



Category: Amrev - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 03:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6177742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostburr/pseuds/ghostburr





	Little Burr

Little Aaron sat with his back to the wall, tears of fury and indignation brimming in his eyes. His arm still stung from where his uncle had grabbed it tightly, wresting him away from the deck of the ship. He could still, faintly, smell the sea air. It burned his nostrils in a pleasant sort of way. The sting lingered in his head and on his face, reminding him that there was a different life. Even at eight years old, little Aaron knew that there was more than dour Calvinism, constraining him to a life of piety.

There was the ocean. And sailing. And perhaps even pirates. His thoughts swam through his head excitedly, helping take his mind from the pain on his backside.

Those were the ideas that lured him towards the rising sun over the Atlantic Ocean, and the ships filled with rugged looking men who promised him a spot on their ship if he’d do all the “dirty work”. That’s what they’d called it, little Aaron reminisced, “dirty work”. One of them laughed as though it were a funny term. The color flooded the little boy’s face, realizing that they were laughing at his innocence. _Anything,_ he said, _I’d do anything for a chance to escape, sirs._

“Escape? Why are you escaping?” The eldest sailor eyed him gruffly, the brown stubble on his face making him appear even dirtier than he actually was.

Little Aaron stumbled over his words, “I…I hate my uncle.”

Several of the sailors laughed, a few whispered amongst themselves. Little Aaron averted his eyes, embarrassed. His expensive new shoes glimmered in the sunlight. The gruff sailor watched him for a moment more, eying him up and down.

“Why’s that?” He threw down a rope and put his hands on his hips. “You’re the Burr boy, right?”

Little Aaron nodded. A sudden burst of confidence caused his chest to swell; he raised his face and looked the gruff sailor in the face, determined to appear brave.

“You’ve got it better than most out here, boy—you’ve no reason to disdain your lot in life.” The sailor finished with a loud spit to his side. Little Aaron flinched.

“I want to see the world.” He tried again, boldly keeping his gaze. Several of the sailors chuckled again and the boy wondered what, exactly, was so funny.

“You’ll see enough of it, in time.” Another suspicious look from the sailor in the foreground turned into one of contempt. “You’ll probably see more of it than any of us.” A sailor directly behind him nodded and scoffed. Little Aaron heard snippets of phrases and words he only halfway understood: _famous, influential, entitled._

Little Aaron ignored this and pressed his case further. “Please let me aboard. I’ll be good. I’ll do the dirty work—“ several more snickers among the sailors in the back, “—I won’t make a fuss.”

“Those pretty new boots won’t last long.”

“I’ll sell them.”

“Have you ever seen a day’s hard labor in your life, boy?” The sailor in front asked, grinning, revealing several missing teeth. The sailors in the back laughed harder. Little Aaron flushed and could not find a response. Silently, he stepped forward, hitching up his small case of belongings.

“Got your Bible in there, little minister?” One of the soldiers in the back, a blonde man with a scar across his neck, called snidely. The little boy frowned. He had, in fact, packed his Bible.

Little Aaron scratched his arm and raised his gaze once again to the gruff sailor in the very front. The two very different beings regarded each other for a moment. The sailor, thick with grime and years of hardship and the pristine, diminutive child, raised among unprecedented influence. The gruff sailor nodded and inclined his head towards the deck of the ship.

“Come on, then,” he remarked, exhaling. Several of the sailors behind him let out sounds of disappointment and annoyance.

“He’ll be nothing but trouble!”

“This isn’t a goddamned nursery.”

“If the uncle find out we’ve taken the favorite nephew—“

But little Aaron didn’t hear them. Excitedly, he ran past the gruff sailor in front and the complaining men—shipmates, he corrected himself in his head—and onto the deck. He didn’t care about their words of derision. Even if he could hear them clearly, the salty wind in his face carried his cares away. He was _free._

“Where are we going first?” he asked the gruff sailor excitedly, throwing his bags down. The remaining sailors continued their work, muttering among themselves. Little Aaron raised his wide black eyes to the man before him, who he assumed was the captain. The captain spit again.

“Where do you think?” He asked, somewhat annoyed.

The little boy shrugged. If he were being honest with himself, he didn’t care where they went. As long as it wasn’t anywhere near his home.

“Some place warm?” Little Aaron offered hopefully.

“West Indies. To pick up a shipment of sugar.”

Images of tropical beaches and palm trees crossed the little boy’s mind and his heart beat excitedly. This was it—the answer to his prayers. And pray he did, every night and every morning. His uncle leading him and his numerous cousins, Aaron was told to give thanks for his blessings and refrain from asking for too much. _If you’re meant to have it, it will be presented to you._

Those were his uncle’s stern, unpromising words—completely devoid of hope.

But Aaron prayed for deliverance, day and night, from the rigid rules that made him feel strange and unwelcome. The sun was too warm, the sky too blue, the ocean too alluring, to have been made by a god that did not want his people to enjoy any of it.

“The West Indies!” The little boy could hardly contain his excitement. Subsequent words were lost on him as he grabbed his things and scrambled towards the mast. Climbing it, Little Aaron imagined he could see the beautiful chain of islands already. In his brilliant imagination, the small boy pictured running through the sand, the sunburn light and playful on his nose and cheeks, his troubles far behind him.

Unbeknownst to the excited new sailor, a small mutiny was forming below.

“He can’t stay. Who knows what that uncle of his will do,” the blonde sailor, with the scar on his neck, complained to the captain. His friend standing beside him spoke up in agreement.

“He’ll come looking for him. We might as well send him back.”

Aaron could not hear them, his mind filled with the screams of tropical birds.

Subsequent shouts from beneath him brought the child back to earth. In the distance, the subdued clothes and wide-brimmed black hat of his uncle walked briskly towards the dock. Little Aaron saw it all unfold before him, the beginnings of a nightmare.

The sailors gathered around his uncle, talked to him animatedly. The uncle would have none of it. Little Aaron crouched down, afraid to be seen. _Perhaps,_ his mind told him, _perhaps if he was not seen, he could get away with leaving this hell forever._ His uncle’s voice rang out shrill, cruel, against the baritones of the sailors.

“Aaron!”

Even the gulls stopped screaming, the boy thought.

“Aaron!” This shout from his uncle was accompanied by a stomp of his foot, the click of his heeled boot making the little boy shudder with fearful anticipation. In his mind, Little Aaron could see his uncle. He squeezed his eyes shut and imagined the man—gaunt faced and grey-haired, overwhelmed by his ridiculous brood of children—so unlike the velvet softness of his mother. The tighter little Aaron squeezed his eyes, the clearer this image of his mother became.

_“Get down here this instant,”_ the uncle did not have to scream this part; little Aaron could tell by the deadly inflection of his voice that he would never leave without a fight. Even the sailors stopped their muted chatter and watched as the showdown unfolded. Eyes still shut, little Aaron imagined the gleeful, self-righteous looks on his cousins’ faces as they sat staring at him, justified in their criticisms.

“I’m not going back,” the little boy whispered to himself.

_“Aaron Burr!”_

Still the little boy did not answer, knowing that here was the point of no return. To go back, to face his uncle and mollified cousins, meant absolute failure.

Unless—

Little Aaron shot straight up, a new scheme forming in his mind.

“Uncle!”

Perhaps his uncle was unprepared for the sly little smile playing across his features of his nephew. He stepped back and removed his hat, blinking in the brilliant sun. Little Aaron stared him down.

“Uncle, I will come back under several conditions!”

The sailors resumed their sniggering, nudging each other and pointing. The uncle whirled around and shot them a glare that shut them up immediately. The little boy, from above, waited.

“Uncle!”

“…Yes, Aaron?”

The little boy exhaled and thought for a moment.

“I will come back…if you promise to…” he faltered and tried to formulate a good argument, “…if you promise to…treat me like an adult!”

Another hoot from the sailors and a loud swear from their captain caused the little boy to blush profusely. The uncle raised a thin, bony finger towards the tiny figure on the mast. He squinted in the sun.

“You dare bargain with me, young man? Who are you?”

Little Aaron did not answer him, and instead ducked down quickly, scared of the outcome.

“You… _you heard me_ , uncle!”

The uncle exhaled, defeated. He began to sweat, embarrassed, in front of the sailors. They whispered insults amongst themselves—the uncle could barely discern them and was rather thankful for that small blessing.

“Aaron.”

“…Yes?”

The uncle gritted his teeth and prayed for a means to get the boy down and himself out of the docks before suffering any more embarrassment.

“Is there anything _else?”_

Little Aaron thought to himself for a moment. In a small voice, he spoke up, each word gaining strength as they left his mouth.

“You…you can’t….” he faltered, swallowed once again, and remembered his gentle mother. “…You can’t beat me.”

Silence prevailed among the rowdy sailors, who had stopped their lewd remarks to listen to the drama play out before them. The uncle smiled a thin, mirthless grin and nodded in their direction as if to say, “Now I’ve got him.”

“You have a deal, Aaron. I promise.” The uncle finished, crossing his arms and waiting for the small, black-haired head to emerge, trusting , from behind the wood. Little Aaron opened his eyes and sighed a small sigh of relief that his terms had been agreed to. Not all authority was bad authority, he chastised himself. Exhaling once again, the small boy gathered his things and put them neatly back into his pack and descended the mast quickly. Eager to further discuss the terms of their agreement with his uncle, little Aaron proudly walked towards the group of men. He was one of them now.

He faced his uncle proudly, searching his face and wondering if it was at all similar to his mother’s.

“Are you ready to come home, then?” His uncle asked through gritted teeth. The nephew nodded triumphantly. Several of the sailors left their group for the ship. The one little Aaron had spoken to directly, the gruff one, frowned at the uncle before heading towards the ship himself. The boy watched as he shook his dirty head sadly.

The uncle grabbed his nephew’s arm tightly, causing the child to gasp from pain—and surprise.

“I asked you a question, Aaron.”

“Yes! And you’re hurting me!” The nephew tried in vain to wrestle his arm from his uncle’s grip, who had begun to drag him towards their house. With a final yank, the uncle wordlessly told his captive to shut up.

In silence, little Aaron followed behind his uncle, reassuring himself that he had a deal. He had been promised. He deluded himself into thinking he could feel the tropical West Indian breeze already on his face—far, far away from the bitter cold New England winters and the even colder family that surrounded him.

For a fleeting moment, little Aaron imagined the paradise that almost was his. Less than an hour later, the uncle forgot all of his promises and beat that paradise out of him.

The tears of fury and indignation forming rapidly, again, as little Aaron recounted the injustices, blurred his vision. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his small pack, still filled with his belongings and the things he’d need for his new life in the islands. _Stupid,_ he scolded himself. _Stupid to get your hopes up. Stupid, pointless, hopeless._ The black leather bible caught his eye and he kicked it. The little boy covered his eyes and gave in to the tears once again. Carefully, he moved himself to his bed and lay, pointedly, on his stomach. His skin burned viciously. A deep part of him was thankful that the scars were hidden, and would always remain so.


End file.
